Is anyone else following the apparent discovery of objects in Earth orbit pre 1957 by Dr. Beatriz Villarroel while looking at old astronomical photography plates from Mt Palomar Observatory?  

It would appear that several objects were photographed by the Mt Palomar telescope in 1952 that appeared to be in Earth orbit  https://www.researchgate.net/publication/394040040_Aligned_multiple-transient_events_in_the_First_Palomar_Sky_Survey

These transient events are difficult to explain, I will post a youtube video explaining these transient events you can watch if you want. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MsV9wI4J2ic

https://www.reddit.com/r/Astronomy/comments/1mjpa5k/aligned_multipletransient_events_in_the_first/

This discovery, if confirmed, seems to be quite interesting... thoughts? 

21 minutes ago, Moontanman said:

Is anyone else following the apparent discovery of objects in Earth orbit pre 1957 by Dr. Beatriz Villarroel while looking at old astronomical photography plates from Mt Palomar Observatory?  

Hi, Moon. Been a while. Hope you are well. Yeah I remember the Villarroel survey coming up here last year. I had posted something about it...here it is:

The next coupla pages in that thread are a way to catch up on this topic. IIRC, some of the transientobjects had distance estimates that were farther than Earth orbit, and no observed image elongation due to motion. Has this kind of historical survey found anything further in the past eighteen months since I posted that?

2 hours ago, Moontanman said:

Is anyone else following the apparent discovery of objects in Earth orbit pre 1957 by Dr. Beatriz Villarroel while looking at old astronomical photography plates from Mt Palomar Observatory?  

It would appear that several objects were photographed by the Mt Palomar telescope in 1952 that appeared to be in Earth orbit  https://www.researchgate.net/publication/394040040_Aligned_multiple-transient_events_in_the_First_Palomar_Sky_Survey

These transient events are difficult to explain, I will post a youtube video explaining these transient events you can watch if you want. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MsV9wI4J2ic

https://www.reddit.com/r/Astronomy/comments/1mjpa5k/aligned_multipletransient_events_in_the_first/

This discovery, if confirmed, seems to be quite interesting... thoughts? 

Oh please, not a YouTube video. Those are usually worthless. Can you summarise the points made?

5 hours ago, exchemist said:

Oh please, not a YouTube video. Those are usually worthless. Can you summarise the points made?

I would agree but "usually worthless" doesn't mean "always worthless" but I just suggested it due to the data discussed by so far reasonably competent people and the links they provide might be easier digested by some who didn't want to bother with the paper I linked.

How ever the gist of it is that a review of photographic plates from Mt Palomar Observatory has found some unusual objects that vanished after being photographed. There is some other stuff that has been attached to it by some people but at it's core are the photographic plates. From what I understand an effort to understand these photos is ongoing, I'm sure I am not qualified to critique the process but so far the data is of interest.

7 hours ago, TheVat said:

Hi, Moon. Been a while. Hope you are well. Yeah I remember the Villarroel survey coming up here last year. I had posted something about it...here it is:

The next coupla pages in that thread are a way to catch up on this topic. IIRC, some of the transientobjects had distance estimates that were farther than Earth orbit, and no observed image elongation due to motion. Has this kind of historical survey found anything further in the past eighteen months since I posted that?

I must have forgotten your post, I apologize, as far as I know your's are the most recent update. The link I shared is from 2025 according to the date listed.

8 hours ago, TheVat said:

Hi, Moon. Been a while. Hope you are well. Yeah I remember the Villarroel survey coming up here last year. I had posted something about it...here it is:

The next coupla pages in that thread are a way to catch up on this topic. IIRC, some of the transientobjects had distance estimates that were farther than Earth orbit, and no observed image elongation due to motion. Has this kind of historical survey found anything further in the past eighteen months since I posted that?

Yes the new paper was just posted in the last few days.

6 hours ago, exchemist said:

Oh please, not a YouTube video. Those are usually worthless. Can you summarise the points made?

That was the wrong video, sorry, this one is the one I wanted to post, as before it comes with all the links to papers he is using.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sbg71Q4Dclo

Edited August 13Aug 13 by Moontanman

Last year we briefly had two moons, and it happened in 1981 and 2022, so it’s not shocking to find evidence that there are other instances

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/2515-5172/ad781f

“Near-Earth objects (NEOs) that follow horseshoe paths, and approach our planet at close range and low relative velocity, may undergo mini-moon events in which their geocentric energy becomes negative for hours, days or months, but without completing one revolution around Earth while bound. An example of NEO experiencing such a temporarily captured flyby is 2022 NX₁, which was a short-lived mini-moon in 1981 and 2022. Here, we show that the recently discovered small body 2024 PT₅ follows a horseshoe path and it will become a mini-moon in 2024, from September 29 until November 25.”

13 hours ago, swansont said:

Last year we briefly had two moons, and it happened in 1981 and 2022, so it’s not shocking to find evidence that there are other instances

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/2515-5172/ad781f

“Near-Earth objects (NEOs) that follow horseshoe paths, and approach our planet at close range and low relative velocity, may undergo mini-moon events in which their geocentric energy becomes negative for hours, days or months, but without completing one revolution around Earth while bound. An example of NEO experiencing such a temporarily captured flyby is 2022 NX₁, which was a short-lived mini-moon in 1981 and 2022. Here, we show that the recently discovered small body 2024 PT₅ follows a horseshoe path and it will become a mini-moon in 2024, from September 29 until November 25.”

This is a non sequitur, the observations do not in any way match quasi moons, please see the paper I listed.

22 minutes ago, Moontanman said:

This is a non sequitur, the observations do not in any way match quasi moons, please see the paper I listed.

You should know better; the material for discussion needs to be posted.

But if the images appear on just one plate and not on another from a few hours earlier, or several days later, then you can’t say the object was in orbit, as you claimed. Geosynchronous orbit (GSO) was mentioned as one possibility, but not by you. Any other orbit wouldn’t show up as point-like, since these were long exposures, which are details you also failed to include. You just asked about objects in orbit, so my response was not a non-sequitur, as it can’t “not follow” information that was not presented.

The thing is, why would you get point-like images from anything other than GSO or a star? If it’s something else then the emission or reflection has to be bright and very brief, and likely not from anything in orbit, which would leave streaks/lines. If they are from the brief orientation of certain shapes that reflects sunlight to us, they also have to be far enough away so that little light is reflected in other orientations. Lower orbits don’t do this - e.g. you can track LEO objects across a significant arc when they’re visible.

So if it’s some other source, (UAP) one must explain why they are only seen away from earth and not close by (referring to an orbital scale). What’s not showing up is as important as what is.

At least they admit and discuss defects/contamination as a possibility.

2 hours ago, swansont said:

You should know better; the material for discussion needs to be posted.

But if the images appear on just one plate and not on another from a few hours earlier, or several days later, then you can’t say the object was in orbit, as you claimed. Geosynchronous orbit (GSO) was mentioned as one possibility, but not by you. Any other orbit wouldn’t show up as point-like, since these were long exposures, which are details you also failed to include. You just asked about objects in orbit, so my response was not a non-sequitur, as it can’t “not follow” information that was not presented.

The thing is, why would you get point-like images from anything other than GSO or a star? If it’s something else then the emission or reflection has to be bright and very brief, and likely not from anything in orbit, which would leave streaks/lines. If they are from the brief orientation of certain shapes that reflects sunlight to us, they also have to be far enough away so that little light is reflected in other orientations. Lower orbits don’t do this - e.g. you can track LEO objects across a significant arc when they’re visible.

So if it’s some other source, (UAP) one must explain why they are only seen away from earth and not close by (referring to an orbital scale). What’s not showing up is as important as what is.

At least they admit and discuss defects/contamination as a possibility.

I am aware, I am not suggesting UAP, I said that "apparently in orbit" The paper is new and was just posted a week ago or so, I did post the link to the paper, The video was not and is not evidence for this I posted it because I was impressed by the data discussed and the links to that data provided and I thought that some might be more willing to watch a short science video instead of reading the paper. Do I have to quote the paper or is posting a link to the paper discussing this enough? I can quote the paper if you want but I do not personally have any data. I apologized to @TheVat for not remembering his post but the data is new, just released.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/394040040_Aligned_multiple-transient_events_in_the_First_Palomar_Sky_Survey

For some reason I don't have a quote feature anymore.

"References (31)

Figures (8)

Abstract and Figures

Old, digitized astronomical images taken before the human spacefaring age offer a rare glimpse of the sky before the era of artificial satellites. In this paper, we present the first optical searches for artificial objects with high specular reflections near the Earth. We follow the method proposed in Villarroel et al. (2022) and use a transient sample drawn from (Solano et al. 2022). We use images from the First Palomar Sky Survey to search for multiple (within a plate exposure) transients that, in addition to being point-like, are aligned along a narrow band. We provide a shortlist of the most promising candidates, including one with ∼3.9σ statistical significance. As in previous cases (Villarroel et al. 2021, Solano et al. 2023), no known astrophysical or instrumental explanations fully account for these events. We explore remaining possibilities, including fast reflections from highly reflective objects in geosynchronous orbit, or emissions from artificial sources high above Earth's atmosphere. Notably, the ∼3.9σ candidate coincides in time with the Washington D.C. 1952 UFO flyover, and another (a ∼2.0σ candidate) falls within a day of the peak of the 1954 UFO wave (Figuet 1980). We also find a highly significant (∼22σ) deficit of transients from Solano et al. 2022 within Earth's shadow, supporting the interpretation that sunlight reflection plays a key role in producing these events. This study should be viewed as an initial exploration into the potential of archival photographic surveys to reveal transient phenomena, and we hope it motivates more systematic searches across historical data sets"

Edited August 14Aug 14 by Moontanman
data

You didn’t mention UAPs but the paper does.

But why the focus on point-like objects, as I asked. Did they look for other anomalies? Plenty of things up there now are visible, such as things described here https://skyandtelescope.org/observing/satellites/

And I saw they mention brightness specs, but did they analyze modern pictures to see how often GSO objects would show up under equivalent exposure conditions?

Another thing - they mention GSO, but only a geostationary orbit would give a point. GSOs move in a long exposure, so I don’t see why they would offer this as a solution. Any object flashing from a sufficient distance would give point-like signals, and if it were tumbling so the flashes could periodically repeat you could get several as it passed through the field of view, whether it was in orbit or not.

On 8/14/2025 at 2:16 PM, swansont said:

You didn’t mention UAPs but the paper does.

But why the focus on point-like objects, as I asked. Did they look for other anomalies? Plenty of things up there now are visible, such as things described here https://skyandtelescope.org/observing/satellites/

And I saw they mention brightness specs, but did they analyze modern pictures to see how often GSO objects would show up under equivalent exposure conditions?

Another thing - they mention GSO, but only a geostationary orbit would give a point. GSOs move in a long exposure, so I don’t see why they would offer this as a solution. Any object flashing from a sufficient distance would give point-like signals, and if it were tumbling so the flashes could periodically repeat you could get several as it passed through the field of view, whether it was in orbit or not.

I've been looking at the photos until I am red in the face and I have to agree, the anomalous objects do not seem to match actual stars... to me it's obvious... but I am disappointed that UAP seems to be infiltrating into science simply by lack of better explanations of late. Sort of a UAP of the gaps.